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I'll answer your points but I'll leave it as-is for now for at least a day. Seems you have some kind of animosity against me and most of your arguments circle around myself, how I post (etc), rather then the actual argument. I don't want to turn this thread into some mindless back and forth quote war and replying to your post there would just be an explantion on points I've already went into detail over. Since NW is going to post his own views later this shouldn't be an issue delaying my explanation to your post so the thread can slow down and other people have a chance to reply as well.

If you have something against me feel free to take it out over vm, pm.

None of my comments besides the last line are somewhat personal, try rereading my post. Atleast i bothered reading your post, before making a comment.
I simply gave my comment based on your previous reply and the comment happened to be criticism counter argumenting your reply.

"Oh let's talk about Kyuube *insert moderator comming in and closing the thread and censoring the topic*"

Looks like censorship to me.

I originally planned waiting for the admins answers in order not to state redundant points, however this very point is one among many of your assumptions that are not basing on facts.

The whole Kyuubey debacle on Madoka's forum wasn't any problem to begin with when people were essentially talking -about him-.
However, the discussions quickly derailed over time when few members keep arguing about such matters to the points things have gone personal and completely cycling. The discussions themselves literally mutated into bikering jousts instead of actual discussion of the topic, which is the very reason why we took actions, so mistakes of the past wouldn't occur again.

There is no censorship here, since we had no problem with discussions regarding the said character, which was on topic (albeit character thread would have been more appropriate). However, the problem went beyond such simple topic, and went to a lot of ad hominem and other remarks being thrown at members instead of keeping a proper discussion flow. Those points weren't only based on the premise of "not agreeing with each other", but were considered disruptive and not constructive for the discussion at hand, which is covered by our forum rules by the way.
Point is obvious when we see people discussing normally about Kyuubey in general after the debacle, be it on episode thread and character thread. And speaking of which, we generally suggested people to redirect their discussion about this character to its -own established- thread so things wouldn't be redundant and more focused.

You made a very gross generalization that we censored the whole discussions, despite we intervened only when the situation went out of hand (to the point a lot of people reported us their discontent in how the discussions were derailed into back then).

Relentlessflame, I appreciate the time and effort that you took into replying to my posts, and to sharing your opinion. I am not going to reply to it line by line, simply because we're growing conversations to the point where I think people won't be able to follow them anymore. However, I did want to point out something:

Quote:

Originally Posted by felix

Essentially you're thinking purely as "how to make the forum better for MODERATORS", not "how to make the forum better for THE COMMUNITY", and you're under the false logic that "what's best for me, is best for everyone".

felix came to that on his own, but it is the impression that I have been getting, too. (Side note: what the heck happened, felix? A few years ago it seemed as if we were always on opposite sides...)

I don't want you or the other staff to take this as an accusation about personal traits or power-mongering - I believe that the site staff volunteered and continue with their position because they sincerely want the site to do well, to thrive, and to be a place where fans can gather and enjoy themselves. In my mind (and in felix's, and presumably among others) the current policies do seem to be more moderator-centric than user-centric, and it's somewhat stifling. That is where my concern stems from.

It's not about the circumstances but what the current solution is with regard to things like this in the current system, it's not even just you...

Quote:

As of Episode 08, any mention of the "childish" nature of the character designs will be treated as being off-topic and depending on the severity of the post warnings or infractions could be issued.

And this has been happening for a while. "Stop talking about this" "Topic X has gotten out of hand, stop talking about it". It happens in series threads too, but at least there we can all back you up on this because that's the only available solution when you need to take action like this. I guess in your mind it's somehow equivalent to closing a thread and it's all alright because "it's only X thing" but how am I suppose to know that? I'm not a mind reader, I can't tell where the invisible line is drawn, so for me it might as well be outright censorship. You essentially can't just walk into a thread and talk. You have to second guess yourself on everything you say.

But anyway, going back to the main issue here:

There was still periods of the thread where it was locked, correct? If threads were created beforehand or the discussion moved; and it would be a pretty obvious move if we didn't have such a focus on everything being condensed into episode threads, then even if the issue had emerged it would have only affected itself and the thread in question.

As it stands it's very ambigous what you're position is after the fact when it's all in a single thread. Since the topic is itself ambigous, tribute to the problem we've been mentioning here. If there was a thread, people that didn't even care for that topic wouldn't even have known about your intervention. If you had closed it everyone would know that specific topic wasn't allowed and all the other Kyuube talk or topics would not be affected.

By closing a generic thread and making a generic rule you essentially make everything a lot more complicated for everyone and set all these potholes you need to avoid.

Most of these so called ad humane topics also only seem to be a issue when they happen in a topic that's not particularly dedicated to them; with the exception of just pure flame topics like religion. If the the discussion had it's own topic then only the people interested would go there. You would then not hear complaints since the people that do not care for it would not have to hear about it.

In this sense how does the current system actually help? It seems when anything resembling a "problematic" topic appears it just backfires, and it's also a lot more vulnerable to turning any heated debate into a flame war because it interwindes topics. Do you believe every topic should be for everyone?

We do not expect members to be mind readers, but at least "read the atmosphere". I trust people do realize when "things go out of hand", when the very same discussion topic has been cycling for a while, to the point members themselves are complaining -in the thread- with comments such like "oh, not that again". This is the sort of timing we intervene, by taking part of the discussions and suggesting that the topic should be left to rest for a while, or at least not in such fashion.
This is also the reason why we often asks people to tone down things a little bit, until a critical limit has been breached, to which we have no choice but to use a staunch stance to stop the trend, nothing more, nothing less.
As we already stated, arguments and the likes were never an issue to begin with. What actually becomes problematic is how cycling discussions are fertile grounds for ad hominem, inconsiderate behaviour/remarks, threading towards baiting/flaming. And when threads are turning south, actions are taken, that's all.

Censorship would be a completely liberal choice to forbid anything and everything, following our "own liking". And I frankly believe it is really not the case: it is obvious some decisions were prone to upset some people, but then again, the majority of the participating members were bothered by the initial issue to begin with (reports and in-topic comments are the general testament of that).

It's not about the circumstances but what the current solution is with regard to things like this in the current system, it's not even just you...

Quote:

As of Episode 08, any mention of the "childish" nature of the character designs will be treated as being off-topic and depending on the severity of the post warnings or infractions could be issued.

And this has been happening for a while. "Stop talking about this" "Topic X has gotten out of hand, stop talking about it". It happens in series threads, but at least there one can say that's the only available solution when you take action like this. I guess in your mind it's somehow equivalent to closing a thread and it's all alright because "it's only X thing" but how am I suppose to know that? I'm not a mind reader, I can't tell where the invisible line is drawn, so for me it might as well be outright censorship. You essentially can't just walk into a thread and talk. You have to second guess yourself on everything you say.

To be fair, you can't blame Gundam age for it's childish art design (edit: that "episode 8" quote was from gundam age , incase other readers don't know), because it's marketed for kids. It's like complaining in every topic of naruto episodes that you hate it because it has shounen manga character designs.
So complaining every time about something in an anime in which that element was intended, does and will ruin a chance of a serious discussion.

Quote:

Originally Posted by felix

As it stands it's very ambigous what you're position is after the fact when it's all in a single thread. Since the topic is itself ambigous, tribute to the problem we've been mentioning here. If there was a thread, people that didn't even care for that topic wouldn't even have known about your intervention. If you had closed it everyone would know that specific topic wasn't allowed and all the other Kyuube talk or topics would not be affected.

It depends, some people don't bother reading locked topics, but the ones who do will know what is not allowed.
Locking a topic by itself solves nothing, unless there was a warning in the last post. But if you don't lock a topic and place a warning somewhere else (beginning of the post or a sticky), it should give the same results,

Quote:

Originally Posted by felix

In this sense how does the current system actually help? It seems when anything resembling a "problematic" topic appears it just backfires, and it's also a lot more vulnerable to turning any heated debate into a flame war because it interwindes topics. Do you believe every topic should be for everyone?

Everyone has the right to go in every topic and post their opinion, but that does not mean that every topic interests them

In fairness to the moderators, relentlessflame did touch on an user-centric reason for wanting to maintain the status quo.

And I quote...

Quote:

Originally Posted by relentlessflame

In general I would just say that you need to consider the big picture when making these sorts of requests. Implementing a change that would seem to benefit a small group of members may seem like an obvious thing to do, but I fear that you haven't really thought through all the implications. For example, there is a significant benefit for all anime series sub-forums to have the same structure and a similar moderation approach. This is why, not too long after limiting sub-forums, we extended that same pattern to all other anime series sub-forums on the site. This helps people understand our expectations and gets people into a habit of what to expect and of how things work. This predictability is invaluable when you're dealing with a community of our size; it reduces moderation issues significantly, and is generally what allows AnimeSuki Forum to run smoothly with a very small but dedicated moderation team.

The core point being made here is a fair one, and it is user-centric.

What I take from this is that there's some value in rule consistency, clarity, and uniformity. That can make how a forum runs more predictable for users, and hence the forum becomes easier for them to navigate and participate in.

Very fair point.

So, with this in mind, let me elaborate a bit more on the idea I earlier put forward on this thread.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Triple_R

Maybe there should be a certain cutoff point, after which an anime series subforum is made open to new threads without needing to persuade a Moderator to post them?

Here I was intentionally vague, as I wanted to invite other users to offer specific time-frame suggestions. Since that has not happened, I'll put forward a time-frame suggestion that I think would be reasonable:

3 Months

3 Months after the most recent episode (or movie/ova) of an anime has aired, its associated series subforum becomes open to free thread creation on the part of users.

So, for example, this thread went up on December 22nd, 2011. That's the thread for the final episode of Mawaru Penguin Drum.

So, come March 22nd, 2012, the MPD series subforum would become open to free thread creation. Now, it's no big deal if this is off by a few days either way, just that it would roughly occur after 3 months.

This 3 month approach would become uniform across all series subforums, and hence it wouldn't take too long before AS users adjusted to this new standard for thread creation on AS series subforums.

But let me propose something that would pretty much ensure no confusion amongst the AS membership.

Going back to my MPD example, this thread would remain on the MPD series subforum, even come April 1st, 2012.

So posters with a neat thread topic idea for MPD, but who aren't yet aware of the 3-month-based rule change on thread creation, would naturally go into the "Penguin Drum - Requests for new threads" thread in order to make his or her thread topic request.

But what would he find in the last post there?

A message from a Moderator saying "This thread is now locked, as per our new rule that frees up thread creation after 3 months of no new anime content. So if you have a new thread you want to post, then post away. Please keep all other Anime Suki forum rules and regulations in mind when you do post, though."

And so the person who was about to make his or her thread topic pitch to a Moderator now thinks 'Oh, cool! I can go ahead and post this up right now without needing to get Moderator approval first. Thank you, Anime Suki!'

In time, the new three-month rule shift becomes standard operating procedures for Anime Suki, and everybody grows accustomed to it.

So while avoiding user confusion is certainly a valid concern, I think there is a way of implementing my suggested rule change that would avoid and/or mitigate any such confusion. And there would still be format/rule uniformity there since this 3-month approach would apply to all series subforums, no exceptions.

(Note: For those I didn't include, it's since I'm not familiar with them, I think they're dead beyond the point of no return, and/or they're pretty active anyway - i.e. Nanoha)

This is not a small list of shows, even if AS is already at the point of retiring a quarter or so of them. The total number of AS users that post on one or more of these subforums is not that small a number either. If it is a minority of AS users, it's a large minority to be sure.

So I do see some potential substantive benefit to freer thread creation on older series subforums.

What I take from this is that there's some value in rule consistency, clarity, and uniformity. That can make how a forum runs more predictable for users, and hence the forum becomes easier for them to navigate and participate in.

Very fair point.

I get the intent behind it, and I can appreciate it. However, these are discussion forums we're talking about, not road rules. Consistency among structure? To me that seems moderator-centric, because there are less gray areas. Are there any users who really care about that? I don't, and I really can't imagine that other users feel it to be something beneficial. It's not like people will get lost or confused - as long as people are titling their threads properly (which is something that should happen forum-wide, and that occasionally calls for moderator action) then I'd imagine it to be fine. I'm open to the possibility that I'm in the minority on this, but I'd be very surprised if that were the case. Should we put it to a poll?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Triple_R

3 Months after the most recent episode (or movie/ova) of an anime has aired, its associated series subforum becomes open to free thread creation on the part of users.

I was going to suggest 1 year after the last episode of a series is released, which would really ensure that there would be no explosion of activity (if that's what the moderator fear is) but open it up to having a steady trickle. Three months, six months... any of those are fine with me.

As far as consistency goes, just put a sticky at the top of those subforums to indicate that the forum is restricted until date X, after which it will open for free thread creation. That would also make it easier on moderators to know when a forum should be unlocked.

Let me just chime in here that I'm also getting the impression that the current policy comes off as more mod centric than user centric.

I don't mean any disrespect to the moderators, but the subforums feel like barren waste lands in general, most of the time.

There have been exceptions like the recent Madoka subforum, but that was because certain people sparked a lot of conversation over controversial topics... And not that I want to poke too much at it, but these discussion points did end up getting muted out of the discussion. Once that happened, there was A LOT less discussion.

Taking a peak at the Madoka forum now also reveals to me that activity has dried up pretty badly too as well. There's just no basis or support for continual activity within these subforums.

If that's the stance the moderators want to take, I only find that disappointing.

I get the intent behind it, and I can appreciate it. However, these are discussion forums we're talking about, not road rules. Consistency among structure? To me that seems moderator-centric, because there are less gray areas. Are there any users who really care about that? I don't, and I really can't imagine that other users feel it to be something beneficial. It's not like people will get lost or confused - as long as people are titling their threads properly (which is something that should happen forum-wide, and that occasionally calls for moderator action) then I'd imagine it to be fine. I'm open to the possibility that I'm in the minority on this, but I'd be very surprised if that were the case. Should we put it to a poll?

The point of structure and rules is not to make life easier for those who have to enforce them. In a lot of cases, the more rules you have, the more work it is to enforce, and I think that's no less the case here. But even as a simple poster (before I was a moderator), I saw significant benefit to the structured approach; it reduced the amount of clutter and stupid threads, provided a clear assortment of topics that met most people's needs, and helped focus the conversations around clearly-defined parameters. Setting these kinds of boundaries helps conversation flow in a smooth and orderly manner, and that's a benefit to me as a poster as much as it is for a mod. It's extremely rare for me to go into a sub-forum and not find a suitable thread for whatever I'm interested in discussing. Now, maybe I'm just the sort of person that likes order by nature. You are arguing that, as a consequence, this means less vibrancy in the sub-forums and less creativity in the sort of topics that are created. That may be the case; it's certainly a point you can argue. But that doesn't mean that the people who benefit most from structural consistency is the mods; I think conversations in sub-forums run a lot more smoothly than some give them credit for, and it's because of the patterns reinforced by the structure. I know that you look back fondly to the early days pre-topic lock, but I think a lot of users have actually benefitted from the current approach without necessarily having thought through the reason things "just work". I'm certainly not trying to say it's a perfect system -- there's no such thing -- but I do really believe the primary people who benefited from this approach are all of us who post in sub-forums, particularly while the shows air.

So I think the whole "mod-centric" vs. "user-centric" paradigm that this debate has taken is really not helpful or even valid. It creates an unnecessarily adversarial tone, and -- I think -- distracts from the legitimate issues. This is not an "us vs. them" issue, it's about pros and cons. Both approaches have their benefits and their drawbacks that need to be considered. And let me tell you that you can put "benefits to the mods" completely off the table in your analysis, as that is never what primarily drives our decision-making. The mods are willing to do what it takes to make the forums an enjoyable experience for as many people as possible. But you need to think of "benefits to the users" beyond the narrow scope of the specific argument you're trying to make; at least, that's what we on the staff always try to do. Every change has a certain weight and causes a chain reaction with wide-ranging impacts far beyond what you initially see. So we have to consider things carefully and really think through all the issues before making a move. Again, this is not being "moderator-centric", but because hundreds and even thousands of users will be impacted by whatever decision we make.

I won't make any other response to the rest of the issues, as I think it's up to the other staff to offer their point of view now. But I did want to address this particular issue, as I think it's a poor argument that's unlikely to further the primary conversation.

But even as a simple poster (before I was a moderator), I saw significant benefit to the structured approach; it reduced the amount of clutter and stupid threads, provided a clear assortment of topics that met most people's needs, and helped focus the conversations around clearly-defined parameters. Setting these kinds of boundaries helps conversation flow in a smooth and orderly manner, and that's a benefit to me as a poster as much as it is for a mod.

I think that we have different views on what constitutes organization. You view having everything confined to as few threads as possible as organized. Within many of those threads there are multiple conversations that occur, whether concurrently or one after another. To me, that is incredibly messy - enough of these conversations are different enough that they should have their own threads. Organization aside, when those threads grow to be very long, I think that is also represents an imposing hurdle for new posters to contribute to.

I recognize that by saying that, I am not going to change your opinion on what constitutes orderliness. I just wanted to give an alternate view, and also to make it clear that I'm not advocating for chaos. I appreciate order (you should see how in-depth some of my filing goes on my computer and for paper), but also recognize that conversations are living, dynamic things that can't always be sorted so cleanly.

Quote:

Originally Posted by relentlessflame

But that doesn't mean that the people who benefit most from structural consistency is the mods; I think conversations in sub-forums run a lot more smoothly than some give them credit for, and it's because of the patterns reinforced by the structure. I know that you look back fondly to the early days pre-topic lock, but I think a lot of users have actually benefitted from the current approach without necessarily having thought through the reason things "just work".

My personal opinion is that you're giving the structure too much credit. AnimeSuki is not the only anime forum I have ever used, but it is the last forum that I ever joined, because I did not feel the need to go to any others; what made AnimeSuki unique was not its structure, nor its "strict" moderators (although the moderators were certainly essential to maintaining the forum's standards of civility and etiquette). What made AnimeSuki unique, and what made the conversations worthwhile, were the users. My guess is that the average poster's age on AnimeSuki was higher than those of other anime forums by anywhere from three to six years. That alone will do wonders for the topics of conversation, as well as the conversations themselves. It sets the culture for the forum better than even the best efforts at moderation are able.

I think you have a valid point for the high-traffic subforums, particularly those that tend to attract the younger age groups. Allowing anyone to make a new thread would result in a flood of threads that would force people to go to pages 2 or 3 to find threads that were still active. Conversation benefits from the structure that is currently in place for those situations. But I'm curious - what do you think would happen if we unlocked some of those older subforums?

Quote:

Originally Posted by relentlessflame

So I think the whole "mod-centric" vs. "user-centric" paradigm that this debate has taken is really not helpful or even valid. It creates an unnecessarily adversarial tone, and -- I think -- distracts from the legitimate issues.

Well then, my apologies. It wasn't meant to be an accusation. As humans, we are limited in that we can only perceive things from our vantage point, with limited insight into the vantage points of others. I raised this particular angle because it seemed plausible, and if it were true, there's a good chance that you would not have recognized it unless someone else said it. If you say that it doesn't factor in, then we can move beyond it.

I don't mean to go for a last word type of thing with these posts, and I would also like feedback from other staff members (NightWish, you promised!). Would you like to discuss order via PMs or VMs?

Hmm ... I have just read through the entire thread and my mind is spinning around and around here. To be honest I am having difficulty sorting things out atm, so if I miss some things please chime in.....Afaict there are two main things that are being brought up to the mods.

The main (first) thing in question here is a dislike for the policy that users cannot start their own threads in subforums once they are created, and that people feel that the inability to do so inhibits conversation on the subject matter primarily over a lengthy period of time - both when the subforums are "active" and especially when they are "retired". The main reasons (that I have been able to tell) that this policy is not liked are because of the difficulty of the policy in a long term view (i.e. new topics come up and such after a show has aired and there users feel that there is no place for a new topic to come up - esp when a subforum is retired).

The second thing in question is the emotional reaction of experiencing a "stifling" feeling that some users attribute to the policy.

****

Now on a personal level while I have admittedly not been here for long I have never felt the effect of not being able to start a new topic in a subforum. I usually find all the subjects needed if I want to bring up a topic and can make a post thereon.

And if I have a question of the mods about moving a thread or starting a thread or what not I usually get a very prompt reply, and this has been from a large number of them: communications with Relentless, Pellisier, Monir, Crow, Skyfall and Daniel, all immediately jump to mind, and there may have been others - the point being that I have personally found the admins/mods pretty accommodating and quick to respond. I can't personally speak to the case of a retired/completely unable to access forum.

I also cannot personally speak to somehow feeling stifled because of the current patterns, methods and structure in place in the forums in general (for whatever reason).

****

I can, however, speak a little of the frame of mind the mods have to keep (and I really believe they have to keep it) when making site-wide decisions. I encountered this personally and "communally", if you will, when I was part of the moderators on another site's forums. And that is the unenviable position of trying to provide for the needs of as many people as possible while trying to provide for each member of the site individually (as far as is within bounds).

At some point members of the forums come to a place where it is clear that what someone (or even some people) would like implemented just does not match with the collective perception of the mods at that time as being the best thing for the community as a whole. Things might change later on, of course, but for the good of the site as a whole the users should be able to step back for the moment and either: 1. try their best in the circumstances they find themselves in, or 2. try to think of other ways that might be helpful for the site as a whole. The perspective/activity of responsibility the mods consciously try to cultivate in themselves is not an "enjoyable" one to begin with, but for things to operate and function those in positions of authority need to make decisions like that from time to time. Being responsible to consider and even make efforts for the individual needs of others while yet needing to give the final word with the larger picture in place, btw, is an extremely unenviable task - whether in online forums or in any position of authority at all.

Anyhoo - I am not saying all this to "shut people up" who wish to voice concerns or whatever, nor am I trying to "point fingers". I guess I am just trying to draw a "larger perspective" to remind (re-remind?) all involved in such discussions and suggestions. Sometimes for a solution to truly "work" it takes a long time for it to blossom, kinda like some people's personalities - some are early bloomers and some are late bloomers. The main thing is for the decision to be at the best timing, whenever it is, that the most people may benefit in the best way. Nothing is perfect - yes. But we can "gambate!" in our efforts nonetheless.

__________________

Last edited by Flower; 2012-01-31 at 06:18.
Reason: Grammar probs to the extreme -_-

Personally, I think the current system's fine. afaik there's the "request new thread" thread in every forum topics. When there's enough demand and convincing reason that a certain thread be made, the mods should generally grant permission for it.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ledgem

My personal opinion is that you're giving the structure too much credit. AnimeSuki is not the only anime forum I have ever used, but it is the last forum that I ever joined, because I did not feel the need to go to any others; what made AnimeSuki unique was not its structure, nor its "strict" moderators (although the moderators were certainly essential to maintaining the forum's standards of civility and etiquette). What made AnimeSuki unique, and what made the conversations worthwhile, were the users. My guess is that the average poster's age on AnimeSuki was higher than those of other anime forums by anywhere from three to six years. That alone will do wonders for the topics of conversation, as well as the conversations themselves. It sets the culture for the forum better than even the best efforts at moderation are able.

But you see, every long-lived forum WILL experience a shift in members. While I certainly think that the users in AS now are more...'sophisticated', we cannot be sure that our younger generation will be too. With the system in place, the younger generation will be shaped so the users in AS stay 'sophisticated', most of the time.

I'm relatively new here myself, but I have heard that animesuki was once a scarred battleground of flame wars and shitstorms between fansub groups. I wouldn't have know that if a senior of mine(who left animesuki due to aforementioned reason) didn't tell me about it.

Last I recall the forum usage stays stable in the long run though. People come; people go.

As for fansubber shitstorms, I don't know that either (<<--see Join Date), but I speculate it has to do with the Fansub forums. It's supposed to be a fansubber hub back then, basically a nest of lolcats; now it's dead and isn't likely be revived any time soon, or ever. Fansubber behavior has shifted; the whole fansub model has shifted irrevocably, and even the US anime market too has shifted (note the problems with the role of Animesuki main page discussed a while back).

________________

IMO, users need not necessarily think site-wide and still contribute a valuable opinion. That's the moderator's job. S/he should express what is enjoyable and what is not about one's own experience in a forum, politely of course, and that in itself is worth considering. A feeling's a feeling, and if it's there, then there is a valid point somewhere.

As for my own opinion, I must concur that conversations in "dead" subforums are terribly difficult to carry on. The model is excellent for currently running, popular series, and I disagree with felix on his argument that the episode threads do not prove conversation friendly even in that context (if they're lively, they get very lively). But it hinders the organic activity of subforums for finished anime. People, as Ledgem said, start to post dump because they cannot expect a conversation, or not post at all even if they have something to say.

On one of the arguments raised earlier, a subforum is already viewed as a "walled" necessary evil; a social group is even more of a walled garden, and it takes very dedicated users to keep them going.

What the proposed free thread creation measure does, in my speculation, is that it will allow threads to experience more organic lifecycles of their own. Long threads *are* scary, users *do* feel daunted, or restricted, if they face a fifty-page Spoiler thread with the last posting date being five months ago. They might feel more comfortable starting a new thread and respond to a new thread, where they can expect at least a modicum of conversation from fellow active posters. There will be problems of their own (jaded veterans going "haven't we seen this conversation before?" Well, yes, a year ago), but the tradeoff isn't terribly high in my view.

Threads eventually die too, and things may indeed get a bit cluttered (though the proposal only applies to subforums that are already thin, I think). Animesuki's thread model is already against the majority of highly active forums' notion that threads should not be necro'd, but while this cognitive difference is somewhat surpassable, and necessary in the case of the main forums and the manga forums (because single threads are about the titles themselves), a subforum does not necessarily need to conform to this model especially after the initial most active phase of its usage. For what value would a dead subforum serve besides the ease of moderation?

Of course, while free thread creation might indeed put life back into some of these forums, even the most ardent supporter of this potential measure need to note that it will probably not be an unmitigated "success." Some forums *will* stay dead anyway.

Unfortunately I sense that there is some discrepancy between what users expect and what the moderators, going by relentlessflame's posts, think of a subforum. The users posted here feel that a subforum should be allowed to experience its own organic growth and decline, effectively self-moderating to an extent, whereas the moderators seem to consider a more strictly controlled lifecycle.

I would argue, however, in favor of an experiment. If it fails after all, no great harm done; we go back to the current model.

Should the experiment to have any kind of success, however, the greater user base needs to be informed via Announcements and the like (or their opinions solicited that way beforehand, as well?).

....IMO, users need not necessarily think site-wide and still contribute a valuable opinion. That's the moderator's job. S/he should express what is enjoyable and what is not about one's own experience in a forum, politely of course, and that in itself is worth considering. A feeling's a feeling, and if it's there, then there is a valid point somewhere....

Of course!

I was not speaking specifically to the site-wide awareness in the context of before bringing up a question/request/etc. I was speaking specifically to the possibility of the question/request was not implemented - either in the short term or even the long term. It is a good reminder that helps to put oneself in the mods shoes and better understand/empathize (hopefully?) where they are coming from and maybe help remove (or decrease) any feelings of a personal sting involved if things did not work out the way you hoped when you hoped. That's all I was trying to (perhaps unsuccessfully) emphasize....

I think that we have different views on what constitutes organization. You view having everything confined to as few threads as possible as organized. Within many of those threads there are multiple conversations that occur, whether concurrently or one after another. To me, that is incredibly messy - enough of these conversations are different enough that they should have their own threads. Organization aside, when those threads grow to be very long, I think that is also represents an imposing hurdle for new posters to contribute to.

I recognize that by saying that, I am not going to change your opinion on what constitutes orderliness. I just wanted to give an alternate view, and also to make it clear that I'm not advocating for chaos. I appreciate order (you should see how in-depth some of my filing goes on my computer and for paper), but also recognize that conversations are living, dynamic things that can't always be sorted so cleanly.

This is an interesting discussion... perhaps almost philosophical. Really, at a fundamental level, you're suggesting that threads should revolve around "conversations" as opposed to "general topics". I can see that there's a certain logic to that approach. But because the vast majority of shows on this site get a single thread to cover every conversation related to the show, I'm not sure that a "conversational model" for threads fits as a general principle for the whole forum. Hence we've applied the "topic model" template everywhere. This has a logic to it, but I agree that it does appear (at least on the surface) to be at odds with this conversational approach/philosophy.

But, as I think about this, there's really a completely separate issue that comes to mind, which is threading. We currently run the forum in basically a "flat" view where every post is sequential in time. But I have been to other forums (and our vBulletin software supports this) that operate in a threaded model that allows separate conversations to happen in the same thread and be visibly tracked separately -- that way the "topic" can still be general/thematic, but the conversations can be distinct. Some people swear by the threaded model, but others just find it confusing and unnecessary. But if, rather than thinking of a thread as a distinct conversation, but rather as sort of "general topic guidance", and the "conversation threads" (sub-threads?) within as distinct entities, does that get you closer to your idea of organization?

Now I'm not necessarily proposing this is a solution, but just throwing it out there as a thought exercise. We pretty much have to raise the thinking to a higher level of "what is a thread" and "what is a forum/sub-forum" and "what is the impact of the different ways to use the tools on the resulting conversations". That's some deep stuff probably worthy of some serious study, and I have to admit that, though I have some instincts about it based on my experiences and preferences, I've never really studied it at that deep of a level. If we're going to pursue that sort of "study", I may even agree with Irenicus that some carefully-thought-out experiments may be in order. But I think this is all based on a deep understanding of the core problem(s) we're trying to solve, and careful consideration of the impact of whatever we decide to do.

At the end of the day, both the forum software and the rules we use here to govern its use are all just tools to serve a purpose. There's nothing sacred about the tools. As was said, the true value of the Forum is the community that's here, and all the tools that are in place (including the rules and the mods that enforce them) are intended to support that community as best as possible. I realize that may not always be easy for everyone to see in specific situations, but that's really what it's about.

As for my own opinion, I must concur that conversations in "dead" subforums are terribly difficult to carry on. The model is excellent for currently running, popular series, and I disagree with felix on his argument that the episode threads do not prove conversation friendly even in that context (if they're lively, they get very lively). But it hinders the organic activity of subforums for finished anime. People, as Ledgem said, start to post dump because they cannot expect a conversation, or not post at all even if they have something to say.

What the proposed free thread creation measure does, in my speculation, is that it will allow threads to experience more organic lifecycles of their own. Long threads *are* scary, users *do* feel daunted, or restricted, if they face a fifty-page Spoiler thread with the last posting date being five months ago. They might feel more comfortable starting a new thread and respond to a new thread, where they can expect at least a modicum of conversation from fellow active posters. There will be problems of their own (jaded veterans going "haven't we seen this conversation before?" Well, yes, a year ago), but the tradeoff isn't terribly high in my view.

I strongly agree with all of this. Very well-said.

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Of course, while free thread creation might indeed put life back into some of these forums, even the most ardent supporter of this potential measure need to note that it will probably not be an unmitigated "success." Some forums *will* stay dead anyway.

That's true. I'll certainly admit to that. I listed several series subforums that I could see benefiting from this potential measure, but I'm under no delusion that they all will benefit from it.

Some likely would have new life breathed into them. Some likely would not. But my thinking is that even if a few can have new life breathed into them, that's to the benefit of the boards.

Where I think there might be some division of opinion here is in how AS moderators and users view series subforums in general.

For me, one of the chief strengths of Anime Suki is its wide array of series subforums, enabling several strong vibrant "sub-communities" to branch out from the more general Anime Suki community.

Do you know what my very first exposure to these forums was, several years ago? It was the Nanoha series subforum's image thread. I came upon it off of a simple Google image search, and spent hours surfing it, initially in awe of the incredible display of artwork and images found on that thread. Needless to say, I was still a pretty new anime fan at the time, and was only seeing the very tip of the iceberg of what the online anime community had to offer.

But that tip of the iceberg included an Anime Suki series subforum. I think these subforums, as long as they're not dead, have real potential for bringing in more members for Anime Suki. I probably wouldn't be posting here on this site today if not for Anime Suki series subforums.

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Unfortunately I sense that there is some discrepancy between what users expect and what the moderators, going by relentlessflame's posts, think of a subforum. The users posted here feel that a subforum should be allowed to experience its own organic growth and decline, effectively self-moderating to an extent, whereas the moderators seem to consider a more strictly controlled lifecycle.

I couldn't agree more with what I put in bold. That precisely and succinctly sums up how I personally view subforums.

The threaded model is excellent, however vB's implementation of it is horrible, almost unusable. People actually have no issue understanding threaded mode, what they have a problem is passing the lazy barier. Essentially for threaded mode to work you have to tell the system who you are replying to, so it means you actually have to use quote, multi-quote, quick reply and so on. You can't just post, not with how it's implemented in vB.

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Originally Posted by Flower

I have never felt the effect of not being able to start a new topic in a subforum. I usually find all the subjects needed if I want to bring up a topic and can make a post thereon.

Nobody is saying you can't post on the topic in a manner that would be similar to starting a topic. It's all about what happens afterwards. The issue lies in a topic's lifespan and how it's messed up. I understand there is a split where essentially you have: (a) people who care for the topic going from A to B, the exchange of arguments and so on and then you have... (b) people who care for only the last word on the topic (or last page), and just shoot something out and go away. Mind you, there's nothing wrong with the second type.

Obviously if you look at it as just opening a prezent each time you go into a topic the current format of merging everything togheter is great! The generic topic format is also great in that respect. It's like with tweeter and blogging, put generic topic format togheter and you have this micro-topic format where everything just lasts a page or two at most, and once the new micro-topic comes out that's the end of it's lifecycle; unless someone necro's it from 10 pages back later which is (most likely) not gonna work since everyone will be focused on the new micro-topic.

This is all great and all but... micro topics have an extremely short lifespan, are undiscovarable, and are only accessible for a short time.

They also have severe issues when it comes to propagation. For example you can have a topic that interests a lot of people, but none of those people frequent the thread where the topic happens every five minutes so it goes something like one post on it every page or second page, which means that topic can not happen. And this may sound like it's an extreme situation, but just think of any topic that involves a lot of arguments and has a lot of angles to it. That takes a lot of writing, writing takes a lot of time, so in a environment like we have now where it's "bury other topics, or get buried" proper civilized topics like that just can't exist. The only topics of that kind (where it's about exchange of arguments more then throwing your own random thoughts out one-time) that can beat the system at it's own game, are flame wars (since they follow suficiently mindless posting patterns and in sufficient quantity). Hence all your arguments now of "well, it's protecting against the big bad evils" and the like.

This whole micro-topic trend seems to be IMHO a more recent trend that has come, not with the death of irc (it's far far from dead) but lets say a very severe decline in it's use and the use of similar system. I think part of it can be attributed to the more widespread use and popularity of IM systems, and comment system. But anyway, essentially if you want spontenious discussion IRC does 10x times better, 10x times faster and with 10x less effort. Becasue people for various reason have stopped using it, along with other similar chat systems, we now have this stupid influx of people treating "forums" as a "chat system". Let's face it, talking about things that expire in less time then a day and have a very temporary aspect to them, may not be necesarly "personal" but it's pretty much just chat, not discussion, nor debate. And that's not what forums are for. Threads are not suppose to act as chat channel logs, they are suppose to be persistent debate, discussion you COULD NOT HAVE in a simply conversation environment like IRC channels. Things that do not require persistent storage are a waste of space and detract for base principle.

Moving on...

I keep reading a lot of purely defensive (especially on a personal level) of the moderators. I mean serious are you all telling me we're all wrong here, because we're all being big meanies and hurting their feelings. What is this, babysitting?

You want to defend their position then just answer the challenges I've mentioned in the previous pages. I've even given the answer to them myself, so all you have to do is prove to me how it does it better. They're linked straight into the main points so it's very simple and objective way of proving they are right and I am totally wrong and this is not a problem. Going by the silence and how everyone is ignoring them however I can only assume you can not face them, and hence this is valid problem and I have every right to explain whichever way I feel is correct. Yeah sure I might be completely off in my assesment of what is wrong, but staying silent isn't going to solve anything now is it. And remember, just because you have no issue with the system, with your posting patterns and your expectations, doesn't mean me and others feel the same way or have to think and post like you. Especially when none of us are actually trying to achive anything particularly wrong or that doesn't conform to high level ideals of the site (ie. "good quality discussion / debate on anime topics").

I would prefer not to go into a dicussion where I have to take a solution-searching approuch. Why? because whenever I do it on this forum I'm met with brick walls, that's why. Pounding them with their mistakes, shortcommings and the like seems to be the only one that actually achives some level of understanding. But since some of you are offended by the approuch, well, I guess why not...

Essentially a "topic" or "dicussion topic" (most certainly not necesarly a thread) has to have several main attributes that need to be guaranteed for it go anywhere.

visibility

linking

discovarability

accessability

relavance

Visibility, a topic is visible to for a suficient amount of time for it to take root; complex topics take time, not all topics can do with a 1-line response chain, if a topic isn't provided enough time it will simply die by virtue that nobody who was in a position to answer or contribute to it had enough time to see it, enough to think about it, or enough time to talk about it. Different topics require different levels of visibility. Longterm topics obviously require more visibility then others, because discussion may only happen in certain intervals and there's only so much to say with out requiring something like story preogression for the discussion to go on further. Shorterm topics (such as say simple events in the episode) can do with simply spontatnous response polling and so can work just fine with very minimal amounts of visibility. There is no such thing as a pre-ordained debate/discussion. A topic has to evolve from being just a subject to being a debate on it's own so if it's not given enough space then it's just gonna die.

The current thread format only provides visiblity at the level of extremely shorterm topics. In the air date of the episode and shortly after even topics that might fit inbetween have some issue with this. Worse still topics choke themselvs. Essentially anything that is worthwhile topic will clash heads and choke each other. The entire format works on the basis that there's always "only one thing that needs visibility" which obviously wrong, as proven by the original system. You'll typically have at least two strong points of interest. If you don't then failing is in having a forum for the series to begin with.

Linking (or convergence) comes into play once the topic has gotten past it's visibility problem. Essentially any subject is gonna be discussed from various angles. What's important is that all those angles converge back on the subject (ie. there's a certain correlation between the points brouth up) and don't diverge away from it and each other; it's not necesarly just being on-topic per se, but rather talking about things that matter. Just sprinking opinions on a topic isn't going to go anywhere, in fact it's likely to take it into the whole ad nauseam problem—since that's essentially what it is when it happens, talking about opinions with out talking about the topic. That's why a generic thread can't really achive linking. Essentially by definition if you're generic then you're objectiveless, hence there's nothing to converge to. The only reason it doesn't go into ad nauseam is because there's no guidline, it's essentially random so it can only go nowhere.

All the threads in series forums are generic. You're only chance of requesting thread of a debate/discussion is (outside extreme circumstances) if you make it generic as well. So basically, linking... nonexistent. This makes all the discussion there extremely dull and flat, as well as one dimentional—since really you're not gonna hear different angles on the same issue, it's just gonna be treated as a seperate micro-topic with no relation to the previous.

Discoverability is basically the attribute by which the general forum rule of "everyone has only one topic" is based on. The thing about discoverability is that it's largely based on two things, the title and the initial post. So for example, let's take the news thread and a piece of news. Generic threads like a news thread are discovarable in the sense that you can find them, but they really have no discovery value, since they are catch-all. It depends on what you're searching but generally, the more exact the subject is the more discovarable it is, the less specific it is the less relavant discovery is (beyond simpy a maintanence aspect; which is not in question). So basically you want threads to be as specific as they can with out hurting the discussion by being too specific to allow for good level of discovery; so an important piece of news for example being in it's own thread is a good balance of that. If it was more specific and fine grane then the discussion the discussion would go nowhere. Discovery kind of solves itself in an organic environement, it goes something like this: you search for a topic, you don't find it, you create it. Because you've created it based on the act of discovery chances are high you've got the ideal topic.

Let's look at series forums; remember they're created because "there's a lot of dicussion potential". First off, what's the dicoverability of the topics in general, I'll give them a good, bad or not-applicable:

Well episode threads are about.... uh episode, or is it just about rating? (Bad discoverability)

General could be about god damn anything. (Bad discoverability)

The typical Info thread is pretty clear and easy to find. (Good discoverability)

Image threads is just an excuse for galleries (not-applicable)

Avatar threads are more of a mechanism (not-applicable)

Merchandise, easy to find, does exactly what it says (Good discoverability)

Speculation thread (Bad discoverability)

Spoiler thread, it's chronological so it does what it intends (Good discoverability)

Q/A is a mechanism (not-applicable)

Single-Manga-thread or Single-Anime-thread generally follow the "progression of the story" and usually stand to mean there's nothing else so, (Good discoverability)

Okey so considering the main topics, it's pretty awful since it's all ambigous to it's purpose. You then have to look at emerging topics. The entire system encourages they be stuck in Episode/General pretty much or Speculation I suppose. Now what are the chances you'll discover them there unless you're following it all by the minute? pretty non-existent chances.

Accessability. A topic has to be easy to read from start to end. The requirement is basically: anyone who has discovered the topic can easily view it's history (ie. points) in a reasonably clear fashion—obviously the quality of the posters influences it a lot but still. The reason why accesability is important is because when a topic has accesability the points brouth up (a) are easy to grasp (b) don't get repeated (c) have a nice progression, among other benefits. When you don't have an accessible topic you get however (a) a lot of topic cycling and recycling, proportionate to the topics complexity (b) a lot of topic stagnation, essentially you're not gonna see the topic go nowhere since only the real popular points is going to be accessible to the majority and hence those points will just get repeated over and over, causing the topic to go nowhere (c) discontinuity, basically if a topic goes from point A, B, C, it would make sense that you should also just have A, C but if the topic is not accessible you're always just gonna have (at best) a connection between the previous point and the current point (so B, C) which is not healthy to the discussion, since this easily leads to the topic derailing itself as it starts to break up over time. Basically when you don't have accessability topics just rust and decay away. the less accessible a topic, the more likely it is to turn into just a flamewar as well. Accessiblity is also heavily tied into a topic being identifieable by members.

Does the current system gurantee accessability? Well when I reply to someone do you think I have any damn clue what the point before was, to which he is inferring or replying to? Nope. Can I find the initial point or identify the debate in some way for reference? Nope. So it would seem they fail the requirement.

Relavance. Every legitimate topic needs to achive a certain level of guranteed relavance over time. This is not say the topic has to stay relavant, but rather that a topic has to be inherently persistent and relavant, essentially one could say "future proof". This is very important in the long term for a topic's lifecycle. Typical topics with focused subjects almost never have an issue with this. Having a very concicise subject helps a lot basically. So say a topic on film cameras, it's still relvant as inference to the past in the present day where we are basically more or less all digital with the exception of niche cases. On the other hand generic catch-all topics are extremely hard to create and satisfy this requirement. The simplest example are timed based threads. So for example a thread based on an event that happens from a certain date and ends. What is there to discuss after the fact? It's pretty irrelavant. Relavance in a thread fuels good discussion and a thread is required to keep relevant to keep the discussion healthy. When a thread becomes irrelvant it has essentially forcefully reached the end of it's lifecycle and preferably threads like this or threads that easily reach this point should be avoided.

In the series forums you have plenty of threads with low relavance. For example, all the substritue-sytem threads: Q/A, Avy/Sig, Image threads are all barely relavant since the time of their creation. You then have threads like speculation threads or spoiler threads, which have a very finite lifecycle. The aren't so much of an issue. There is demand and there's no alternative solution, yet. And then you have the Episode threads. These things have a lifecycle of 1 week. And you might say well people can still post if their slowpokes, but that has no bearing on the threads relvance. IT's still 1 week since after 1 week you get a new episode and discussion in the previous weeks episode becomes thus inherently irrelavant. The minimum relavance for any thread should be at least the show's running time. So inherantly this also means if you have a short show (1 cour, 13 weeks) you want more condensed topics (so that there's more convergence and topics keep relavant), if you have a longer show (52 episodes) then you want more topics with more precise objectives to allow for aspects of the show to evolve and keep the relevance. It's not just about length, a drama requires a separate approuch then a romance, a romance requires a separate apporuch then a sci-fi, etc. The current way completely ignores this, and just treats everything the same.

Additionally, you can't force relavance. Something won't become relavant just if you say copy/paste it from another part of the forum where it might have seemed to work. Ideally, you achive the balance by manipulating what people already express they want. So if they say talk about certain romance angles, then it's a good time to split it off, thus creating a already self sustaining discusson and also guranteeing the discussion where you take it from keeps relavant as well by not gettting sidetracked.

So, episode threads.... utterly irrevalant, no value longterm (no the poll hardly helps). What about general thread? Well for example series threads keep relvant by following a series progress (as I keep babling over and over), unfortunately that purpose is taken from them when they are moved into series forums. They are turned from a progres thread to simply a mechanism, a catch-all, something like Q/A, Images, Ava/Sig and the like. As such it becomes irrelavant, with people being redirected to the fancier but flawed design of episode threads. It's still probably got more longterm value then anything else in the series forums but because it's relavance is so low it's value inherantly low as well, at least by comparison to say a series thread for a non-forum series.

So, unless there's some hybrid solution like threading, only one that's actually usable/viable, the only way to gurantee the basic requirements for a healthy topic is to have specialized threads for all but micro-topics. And this is required not just for the longterm lifecycle for the topic in question, but also for the shorterm.

From my POV, a moderator does NOT need to: read the discussion, understand the discussion, agree with the discussion, know the material, "protect" any one side, or make it so everything is rainbows and unicorns. All they need to do is make sure each thread is guranteed those basic requirements; and it should be top priority. Yeah there are nuances to it, but even those can be treated in subtle way that don't realy affect topics themselvs in a negative way. For example? flame wars, you can just implement a "Sink" feature like they have on Vanilla forums (ie. new replies don't bump topics), or if it's just a issue of two posters posting too much and diluting the topic then just implement an Slow mode by overwriting the time between posts or something so you can only post every 6 hours. Locks or rules or making example of posters is not necesary and it's just favoring certain angles to topics over others which is unhealthy to a discussion/debate. It's also pretty lazy moderating; lazy in the sense that it's treating the symtoms not the actual problem.

Additionally, you can't force relavance. Something won't become relavant just if you say copy/paste it from another part of the forum where it might have seemed to work. Ideally, you achive the balance by manipulating what people already express they want.

Why do you think we have template threads? We didn't pull them out of our asses, we chose them as the most commonly requested threads. Over the years, people expressed that they wanted those topics, so we now include them by default. For topics that people want to discuss that we didn't include, we have a thread to request them.

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So, unless there's some hybrid solution like threading, only one that's actually usable/viable, the only way to gurantee the basic requirements for a healthy topic is to have specialized threads for all but micro-topics.

You are arguing for an extreme level of organized topic discussion, I hope you realize that. Simply opening up thread creation does not create this. Do you have any idea the time we spend moving, merging, or deleting topics because people can't be bothered to search, can't be bothered to look for the right place to post (even in the same forum!), would rather post a "new" topic just to get their point heard among the crowd, and are just generally lazy?

This notion that threads are too big and too difficult to read is bullshit. You don't have to read every single post in a thread, and it's not difficult to find relevant discussion to talk about. Nor is it difficult to ask a moderator to get a thread created if you feel the topic is worth a dedicated thread. On the other hand, we might say no, but we don't do so arbitrarily.

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From my POV, a moderator does NOT need to: read the discussion, understand the discussion, agree with the discussion, know the material, "protect" any one side, or make it so everything is rainbows and unicorns. All they need to do is make sure each thread is guranteed those basic requirements; and it should be top priority.

Your point of view is wrong. A moderator does need to read and understand discussions to make decisions. It's incredibly helpful to know the material, or at least defer to another moderator who does. We don't "protect" any one side, we do punish people who can't abide by forum rules. Making everything rainbows and unicorns is our job, which is to ensure the forums remain civil. We don't have to agree with the discussion, but we do have to at least understand it before taking any actions.

You speak of such things as trivialities, but you know exactly how difficult it is to ensure stability in large communities. You have been on these forums a very long time, and you are well aware of how the moderators act, old and new. Our jobs are not simple, and we're often stuck in a position of "damned if you do, damned if you don't".

If there is an argument to be had that some policies are for our own benefit, yes, that's true. We will sometimes implement things because it makes our jobs easier....you know, the volunteer job that requires time out of our day. On the other hand, we always strive to balance that with what we think is the "greater good" of the forums. Making our job easier but making the community's experience worse is not something we're interested in.

You've been constantly arguing for years about your unhappiness with how we manage the forums, and frankly it has passed the point of wearing thin.

You have no idea how contradictory your "logical" argument is because you don't actually have to do our job. It's easy to sit back and criticize when you have no investment in the outcome except your own perception of how things should be done.

You can call this defensive. You can say I'm attacking you. I don't give a shit. I'm just tired of your constant stated and implied comments about how much we fail, in your point of view.

The reason why thread creation in subforums is locked is simple to anyone who has spent any time wandering the internet. The Internet Fuckwad Theory applies even here, and if you give people any opportunity to be stupid, they will. Locking thread creation allows us to screen undesired topics before they are created. It's to our benefit, and the member who can't figure out what the "right" thread to post in is because there are now twelve that exist because people can't be bothered to use their brain before creating a new thread.

This isn't to say that all new topics would be bad, however the only difference between locked and unlocked thread creation is that now you have to really want it, and you have to justify it. You imply that we're being lazy, without admitting that the community itself can be equally as lazy.

In forums without locked thread creation, do you have any idea how many times we move/merge/delete threads because:

1. Reading stickies is hard.
2. Noticing stickies on the same topic you're about to create a new thread about is hard.
3. Reading the forum title you're about to post in is hard (hi suggestion threads in general)
4. Searching for more than five seconds is hard (i did a search for "the" and nothing came up!)
5. The thread has no focus (I just felt like saying pizza!)
6. It violates forum rules (Americans, why are they so lazy? *instant flamebait*)
7. Do I really need to continue?

These problems and more existed in subforums before the limit on thread creation was put in. You hold up the Mai forums as some shining example, but you also neglect to mention that work that Catgirls put in to keep the place from falling apart. I spent a lot of time in that forum back in the day, and there were always pointless, stupid, and often duplicate threads being created because people were too lazy to think before clicking buttons. Catgirls (and other mods) did a lot to keep that place going.

I'm not arguing against making thread creation more user friendly, and I am happy to listen to suggestions and offer my thoughts, but I am not going to sit here and read these retarded posts from you that are frankly nothing more than long winded criticisms about how we don't do our job to your standards.

I'm not requesting that this be changed, but I'm curious as to why such a regulation was put in place. For very popular series (particularly those that attract a lot of younger members), I can understand that the restrictions cut down on what would probably amount to spam and dozens of repeat posts. But for lower-traffic series, or series that are past their prime, what's the purpose?

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I don't do this very much but I'm going to partake of a little "thread guidance" moderating... I'm seeing a slow but painful degradation of the post quality in this forum and I don't like it. The off-topic-ness and "one-line" replies in a number of threads here is getting silly. I know the show is coming to an end but that is no excuse!

Keep the topics focused, a number of posts have been deleted for being completely off topic or pointless. This isn't a place for random comments and chatting. Try IRC or PMs for that sort of thing.

Also, try to expand your otherwise "one line" replies or wait until you have something more interesting to say. I've seen fair number of one-liners in this sub-forum. Try to think a little more before posting.... I know it is tempting to jump in with a short comment, congratulatory remark, or so... but they don't really add much, do they? No they don't. Sometimes a short witty reply can make people think and spur interesting debate. Which is fine. However, about half the posts in one of the threads have been short replies with little to recommend them!